Tuesday, June 11
This one starts with well over 8 hours of sleep. Waking up before 7am is easy when you’re in bed by 9!
First thing that we did was drop our baggage off at the train station, conveniently located two blocks from our hotel. We ate breakfast right there at the station, though we had to wait for Amanda’s bacon and they were out of her hot chocolate, and they were out of my orange juice, so we ended up splitting a Fanta. Here’s why this is interesting, to me anyway: Fanta in the UK is not the same as Fanta in the US. We are used to it being just another orange soda (or whatever fruity version you prefer). Over here, it is actually carbonated orange juice, made from the squeezings of actual fruit. Still not exactly what i’m looking for in a breakfast beverage, but more acceptable to that purpose.
With the bag dropped (just the big piece of luggage – we’re still hauling our backpacks on our backs, because it cost 7GBP per item to leave stuff there), it was time to see Liverpool and all the Beatlemania it contained.
Even though we had bus passes (they were added to our train tickets at a very modest fee), we ended up walking everywhere because it was faster than the bus. Liverpool has many streets that you can’t drive on, it’s just a lot of foot traffic to the shops and sights. Kind of nice, actually, maybe only because we were not with car.
Our first stop was the legendary Cavern Club, where The Beatles played their first 292 shows. “The Most Famous Club in the World” they call it, famous, of course, because of The Beatles. The club itself was closed at that time, opening at 10am, but we looked around outside for a bit, as there is still plenty to see without actually going in. The outside of the building across the street has been erected as a wall of fame, its bricks each inscribed with the name of a band that played at the Cavern Club between its inception in 1957 and when it closed its doors in 1973. Every single artist to have played there in its initial run is represented, except for two who, according to a plaque on the wall which offers no further explanation, have had their bricks removed. I’m not sure what the point to having those bricks removed was, since it names both of them, and one is Gary Glitter. I didn’t recognize the other name. I did recognize plenty of other names on that wall, though. Most famous club, indeed.
So we wandered off, intending to find a bus to take us to The Beatles Story, an expansive Beatles museum located on the far west end of downtown, on the docks. We walked aimlessly at first, seeing a whole bunch of Liverpool, which was nice, before deciding to head for Central Station, which we thought, since our map showed no train tracks coming out of it, was a bus station. It was not, it was another train station.
Amanda suggested we return to the Lime Street Station, since we knew there was a bus information station somewhere near it – we just weren’t sure where. I instead posited that we should return to the Cavern Club, since it was now past 10 and it should be open. I reasoned that, being one of the city’s Beatles hotspots, they should be able to tell us the best way to The Beatles Story from there.
Between those, there was a used record store involved; i came away empty-handed, though.
In order to get to the Cavern Club from the direction of Central Station, the best way to go involves walking through a shopping center called Cavern Walks. As we were coming up to it, we saw people in yellow vests blocking the entryway, and indeed the entries to all of the shops on that street, and heard the obnoxious braying of emergency alarms. People were streaming out of the other shops as we walked up, but Cavern Walks was devoid of traffic. We stood there for a moment, trying to decide the best way to proceed, and Amanda urged me to walk up to the vested woman at the entrance to Cavern Walks and ask if we could pass through, and i, skeptical, was about to do just that when another young man attempted to walk in and was stopped. So, we diverted, taking the long way to the next street over, and then heading down Mathew Street (the famous street the Cavern Club is located on – another pedestrian thoroughfare), where we found clusters of people standing outside the Cavern and more people with yellow vests patrolling the area, and of course the noise. A blue-shirted man with a clipboard, who we assumed to be associated with the Cavern in some way, was approached by a yellow-vested person, and from the bits of conversation i heard from them, it seemed that nobody knew what was going on that warranted all of the alarms and evacuation.
We waited for a few moments, and eventually the alarms stopped, and the clusters of people returned to their business. We never found out what really happened there, but some signage we saw at a different location later on seemed to indicate that alarm testing was happening about the city today. Seems possible. We never had any other trouble with it.
The Cavern Club is located in what was once the basement of a warehouse. We walked down three flights of brick stairs to get to it, and it does indeed look like a brick cavern. Being just after open on a Tuesday, the place was empty save for three staff members. So we just minded our own business, walking around the club quietly and taking it all in. The brick walls themselves are smothered in graffiti, mostly seeming to be the signings of bands who have played there, probably since it reopened in 1984. There are photos and pieces of art hanging about depicting some of the more famous artists who have performed there, including Rod Stewart, Spencer Davis, The Rolling Stones, and, more recently, Adele. And of course, multiple display cases with merchandise for the distinguished tourist to purchase. I considered a t-shirt, but didn’t buy it. And this was where i saw my first lambanana.
Amanda and i shared a Coke while deciding what to do next, and ended up asking the staff if they knew what the best bus to take to Beatles Story would be. As it turned out, it was faster to walk there, so we did.
On the way, we stopped into an entertainment store, and i finally grabbed myself a copy of the new Biffy Clyro album, Opposites. I’d been holding out for this trip to purchase it. Alyssa, against my protest, purchased herself the American release, which is but a single disc. I would settle for nothing less than the full package, 2CDs and a DVD. Which it just now occurred to me, as i typed this, may be Region 2 and unplayable when i get home. Shit.
The Beatles Story cost more to get into than i’d like to admit, but it was a good time. Among the many installations depicting places relevant to Beatles history and specific moments in their timeline are a number of fascinating artifacts. As you might expect, there are musical instruments previously owned by the band, including George Harrison’s first guitar (which he apparently owned for four years before selling to another local kid – i’m suspicious of how they may have verified its authenticity) and most of the instruments used by John Lennon’s previous band, whose name escapes me at this particular moment. They were a skiffle band – a genre which was short-lived, but highly influential on the Beatles, and which George Harrison felt he never stopped playing. From the descriptions of skiffle and the samples we heard in the museum, skiffle seems to be the folk version of punk rock – in the 50s. I’m interested in hearing more of it.
I could probably go on and on about The Beatles Story and talk about all the fascinating things we saw there – like a copy of The White Album pressed on blue vinyl – but that is not what this journal is for. We were fortunately allowed to take pictures and video through the whole museum, except for the Elvis part, which i’m still getting to.
When we’d entered the museum, the cashier had given us a small pamphlet including a map. It showed two locations for The Beatles Story, the one we were at (and the only one on the city map), and a second several blocks away. We walked along the waterfront to get there, which was a path paved in rough cobblestones. It was hard on Amanda’s feet, wearing her toe shoes that are basically foot gloves, but i was having a hard time on it even in my regular shoes.
Along this path we saw three giant sculptures – superlambananas. They are literally statues of lambs crossed with bananas, like if you took a lamb and replaced its back end with a giant banana. I’ve got nothing. At no point in our stay in Liverpool did we see anything to indicate what a lambanana was or what it represented. The only plaque we saw near them said Please Do Not Sit On The Superlambananas. They are scattered about the city in the same way that Madison has our cow statues, and painted accordingly. Which is to say, each is a work of art representing something not necessarily associated with a cow/lamb/banana. The first of these three on the waterfront had portraits of bands on it (curiously, not The Beatles). Another had a frog on its face. Amanda informed me that she had seen a superlambanana near the airport when we first came in. She had tried to get me to shoot some video of it, but by the time i turned around, the bus had passed it. My only previous lambanana sighting was some miniature ones that the Cavern Club was selling, but this would not be our last.
The second location consisted of a larger gift shop than the first, a 4D theater showing a 12 minute film only loosely related to The Beatles, and an entire exhibit on the relationship between Elvis and The Beatles, which included video clips narrated by Pete Best, because what the hell else is Pete Best doing with his life the last 40 years.
I was a little upset when i first saw that this location contained the Elvis exhibit and 4D theater and that’s it, because when we first went in to the museum, we had opted to pay the lower admission price, which did not include those things. I said to Amanda, “Did he send us all the way the hell over here for these things, when he KNEW we didn’t pay for them?” She encouraged me to pull out the receipt and take a look, and i remembered then that what the kid at the desk had charged me had actually been a few pounds less than the listed price, which at the time i’d accepted without saying a word. So when i looked at the receipt, i was greeted with the words ULTIMATE PACKAGE – STUDENT.
So whoever you were, kid at the register, thanks for your generosity! Extra stuff for less money, because we’re clearly students. Made my day. So we got to see several guitars previously owned by Elvis, two of his sequined jumpsuits from the 70s, a whole collection of acetate vinyl which was given to Elvis by the studios he recorded at to proof the products before they were mass produced, and a bunch of other cool stuff.
The 4D movie was largely ridiculous, a narrative of a kid trying to get across town to perform with a band in 10 minutes. He is hit by a bus, which is operated by a crazy person whose eyes roll around randomly, and taken underwater and into a psychedelic world of this is what LSD looks like. So i suppose it was actually pretty Beatlesque. As it was a “4D movie,” we got shot in the face with water, jerked around in our seats, hit with some pretty strong strawberry scent, and flooded with bubbles.
From there, we decided it was time to head back to the Lime Street Station and catch our train to London. Even though the walk back to the station would not have been bad, we were universally of the opinion that FUCK WALKING. We’d been walking literally all day with our heavy backpacks on and going all the way back to the station on foot was as unappealing a prospect as getting dragged there behind a car. We asked someone at the museum if they knew what the best bus to take back would be, but he didn’t know, and directed us to the nearest bus stop where he assured us there would be several that would do it.
There was a driver just coming back to his parked bus when we arrived, and several buses waiting behind him, so i inquired as to which would get us back to the station. He suggested one of the others, then decided that we would actually be better off going with him. I mentioned our bus passes, but he said, “Bah, just get on.” So there we have it, the one time we actually took a bus in Liverpool after picking up our passes, and we didn’t even need them.
We arrived back at the station with plenty of time before our train actually left, and in fact a little before it even boarded. We grabbed some lunch at a fancy croissant place where Amanda chastised me for filming our food because no one would be interested in seeing what we were eating, and i thought to say, “Tell that to all the hipsters on Instagram,” but then realized that i’d be defeating myself, so i shut the camera off.
Boarding our 15:48 train at 15:30 seemed like a really good idea. I mean, of course, right?
Shortly before we were scheduled to leave, there came an announcement that the train was to be delayed for some sort of problem with the tracks just outside of the station, and they didn’t know how long it would take to repair.
A bit after that came the announcement that they were still working on it, and that it affected platforms 7, 8, and 9. We were at platform 7. More information to follow.
Eventually they canceled our train altogether and merged us with the identical route scheduled for 16:48. We were in no actual hurry, though it sucks to lose some London time in exchange for just sitting on a train doing nothing for an hour.
Well, the 16:48 got canceled also. There was an announcement that a train a couple platforms down would be leaving very soon and would get us near our destination, with only a transfer in Manchester. Our train, which was already bearing passengers intended for two separate runs, cleared out in a hurry as people scrambled over to the other platform. We were a bit slow in getting our things together, and a girl who had been sitting just a couple seats away from us came back aboard as we were about to debark, telling us that the other train was absolutely packed, there were people standing in the aisles and everything. We didn’t relish the idea of standing all the way to London, or even Manchester, so we decided to stay put. Amanda was getting increasingly agitated with the situation, and eventually i caved to her demands that i go talk to someone and find out what was going on. I was assured that the train we were already on would absolutely, definitely, for sure leave at 17:48.
Shockingly, it actually did. And so, fully two hours behind schedule, we are on the (rail)road to London. I’m not sure where we are as i type this, but it’s somewhere between Sheffield and London, and i am 100% certain that, in the middle of the countryside, sitting in the back yard (“garden” as they call it here) of some farmhouse, i saw a full size replica of a Stargate.
-Edit, five minutes later: John Lennon’s skiffle band was called The Quarry Men, and when i wrote that we were just outside of Watford Junction.
The train ride was around two and a half hours, landing us in London just after 8pm. It took us some time at the Euston Train Station to figure out which tubes would get us to our hostel. In fact, we didn’t even know where the hostel was. I’d printed every single email and document i’d been sent about the trip before we left, but somehow the address to our awesomely-named accommodation, the Arsenal Tavern Backpackers Hostel, was not contained within their confirmation. Fortunately, Amanda was able to recall, after looking at a tube system map, that it was near the Arsenal Station.
Because of course.
Well, that was easy.
So now comes my first experience with the London Tubes, which is their subway system. They are awesome. I tell you what, if we had a tube system in Madison, i would never drive anywhere. Pay a fee to get into the system, then you can hop from train to train unimpeded until you get to your destination. They come through every couple of minutes and just cruise from station to station. It’s so efficient, it’s so easy, and you literally cross the city in minutes. It sure beats traffic.
Dropped our stuff off at the hostel, locked up our bags, and headed down to the actual Arsenal Tavern to get some food. Sadly, they had already stopped serving for the night, a surprise to us since we thought they were supposed to serve until 11, but oh well. The barkeep directed us to several fine restaurants within a block, but we walked past them all and none tickled our fancy.
After a few blocks, we ended up at a place whose name escapes me now that served burgers, pizza, falafel, and kebabs. I guess it was Greek. We each ordered a chicken kebab, and i guess i was expecting some chunks of meat on a stick, but this was not the case. What we got was a plate full of little pieces of chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, and red and white onions. Then they brought out a couple of pitas and some bowls of cucumber sauce and hot sauce. So, not really knowing what to do, we cut open the pitas and stuffed them full of the various items from our plates. It was delicious. Highly recommended! Perhaps we will try the same type of deal when we get to Greece to see how it compares. We also got an orange soda, again whose name escapes me (this never happened in New Zealand, every little detail on the various brands and local items we consumed was memorized instantly…i’m losing my attention to detail), and i thought it very similar to the Fanta that we had for breakfast: like carbonated orange juice.
Next we hopped on a tube and headed toward the center of the city, to see London at night. It was well past dark at this point.
London at night is breathtaking. We emerged from the Underground (another term for the Tubes) at Embankment, right beside the Thames, and within a minute of walking could see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. As we drew closer to them, the London Eye loomed its gigantic self into our vision, that horrible device that Amanda is going to force me into tomorrow. See, the London Eye is the world’s largest Ferris Wheel; i hate those things, hate them madly. Granted, this one was constructed by actual engineers rather than chigger-eaten carnies (no offense intended for any former or current carnies reading this; you know who you are, and i assume you’ve already heard my story about the chigger-eaten carny i ran into once), so maybe i won’t fall off and die.
We continued down the bank of the Thames until we came to an open building; we weren’t sure what it was from the outside, but it looked like some sort of shopping center and definitely had a McDonald’s just inside, which was good, because i was desperately thirsty. Unfortunately, upon entry we discovered the McDonald’s to be closed, so we proceeded through the only other available door and found ourselves in a sprawling, three-story-tall video arcade. I was shocked that such a thing could exist these days; the only operable arcade of any kind i’ve seen in the last five or so years never had more than a handful of people in it and finally closed down just last year. The three levels extended underground rather than up, and on the final level down we found a full bar and a bowling alley. The middle level also had slot machines. But for the most part, all video games. We found a Pepsi machine, got what we came for, explored the rest, and then continued on our way. I’m kind of kicking myself now for not shooting any video in the place, it would have been cool to show my friends. Well, we’re in London for two more days, maybe we’ll go back.
Not far past that, we crossed over the Thames so we were now right next to Parliament and Big Ben. Beyond that, we walked around Westminster Abbey, all lit up and just gorgeous to look at. These are all places we intend to visit during the day, but seeing them at night is really something else.
After that, we found ourselves in Saint James. I was looking for the Infirmary, so i could sing some blues, but didn’t see it. It’s got to be there, though, right?
From Saint James we took the tubes back to Arsenal and the hostel, and that brings us up to now. Amanda’s asleep, i’m down in the common room finishing up this entry and posting stuff on the internet while i watch some rubbish on the TV. I’m not sure what this is, but they can say the f-word and show boobs on TV here, so there’s that.
This one starts with well over 8 hours of sleep. Waking up before 7am is easy when you’re in bed by 9!
First thing that we did was drop our baggage off at the train station, conveniently located two blocks from our hotel. We ate breakfast right there at the station, though we had to wait for Amanda’s bacon and they were out of her hot chocolate, and they were out of my orange juice, so we ended up splitting a Fanta. Here’s why this is interesting, to me anyway: Fanta in the UK is not the same as Fanta in the US. We are used to it being just another orange soda (or whatever fruity version you prefer). Over here, it is actually carbonated orange juice, made from the squeezings of actual fruit. Still not exactly what i’m looking for in a breakfast beverage, but more acceptable to that purpose.
With the bag dropped (just the big piece of luggage – we’re still hauling our backpacks on our backs, because it cost 7GBP per item to leave stuff there), it was time to see Liverpool and all the Beatlemania it contained.
Even though we had bus passes (they were added to our train tickets at a very modest fee), we ended up walking everywhere because it was faster than the bus. Liverpool has many streets that you can’t drive on, it’s just a lot of foot traffic to the shops and sights. Kind of nice, actually, maybe only because we were not with car.
Our first stop was the legendary Cavern Club, where The Beatles played their first 292 shows. “The Most Famous Club in the World” they call it, famous, of course, because of The Beatles. The club itself was closed at that time, opening at 10am, but we looked around outside for a bit, as there is still plenty to see without actually going in. The outside of the building across the street has been erected as a wall of fame, its bricks each inscribed with the name of a band that played at the Cavern Club between its inception in 1957 and when it closed its doors in 1973. Every single artist to have played there in its initial run is represented, except for two who, according to a plaque on the wall which offers no further explanation, have had their bricks removed. I’m not sure what the point to having those bricks removed was, since it names both of them, and one is Gary Glitter. I didn’t recognize the other name. I did recognize plenty of other names on that wall, though. Most famous club, indeed.
So we wandered off, intending to find a bus to take us to The Beatles Story, an expansive Beatles museum located on the far west end of downtown, on the docks. We walked aimlessly at first, seeing a whole bunch of Liverpool, which was nice, before deciding to head for Central Station, which we thought, since our map showed no train tracks coming out of it, was a bus station. It was not, it was another train station.
Amanda suggested we return to the Lime Street Station, since we knew there was a bus information station somewhere near it – we just weren’t sure where. I instead posited that we should return to the Cavern Club, since it was now past 10 and it should be open. I reasoned that, being one of the city’s Beatles hotspots, they should be able to tell us the best way to The Beatles Story from there.
Between those, there was a used record store involved; i came away empty-handed, though.
In order to get to the Cavern Club from the direction of Central Station, the best way to go involves walking through a shopping center called Cavern Walks. As we were coming up to it, we saw people in yellow vests blocking the entryway, and indeed the entries to all of the shops on that street, and heard the obnoxious braying of emergency alarms. People were streaming out of the other shops as we walked up, but Cavern Walks was devoid of traffic. We stood there for a moment, trying to decide the best way to proceed, and Amanda urged me to walk up to the vested woman at the entrance to Cavern Walks and ask if we could pass through, and i, skeptical, was about to do just that when another young man attempted to walk in and was stopped. So, we diverted, taking the long way to the next street over, and then heading down Mathew Street (the famous street the Cavern Club is located on – another pedestrian thoroughfare), where we found clusters of people standing outside the Cavern and more people with yellow vests patrolling the area, and of course the noise. A blue-shirted man with a clipboard, who we assumed to be associated with the Cavern in some way, was approached by a yellow-vested person, and from the bits of conversation i heard from them, it seemed that nobody knew what was going on that warranted all of the alarms and evacuation.
We waited for a few moments, and eventually the alarms stopped, and the clusters of people returned to their business. We never found out what really happened there, but some signage we saw at a different location later on seemed to indicate that alarm testing was happening about the city today. Seems possible. We never had any other trouble with it.
The Cavern Club is located in what was once the basement of a warehouse. We walked down three flights of brick stairs to get to it, and it does indeed look like a brick cavern. Being just after open on a Tuesday, the place was empty save for three staff members. So we just minded our own business, walking around the club quietly and taking it all in. The brick walls themselves are smothered in graffiti, mostly seeming to be the signings of bands who have played there, probably since it reopened in 1984. There are photos and pieces of art hanging about depicting some of the more famous artists who have performed there, including Rod Stewart, Spencer Davis, The Rolling Stones, and, more recently, Adele. And of course, multiple display cases with merchandise for the distinguished tourist to purchase. I considered a t-shirt, but didn’t buy it. And this was where i saw my first lambanana.
Amanda and i shared a Coke while deciding what to do next, and ended up asking the staff if they knew what the best bus to take to Beatles Story would be. As it turned out, it was faster to walk there, so we did.
On the way, we stopped into an entertainment store, and i finally grabbed myself a copy of the new Biffy Clyro album, Opposites. I’d been holding out for this trip to purchase it. Alyssa, against my protest, purchased herself the American release, which is but a single disc. I would settle for nothing less than the full package, 2CDs and a DVD. Which it just now occurred to me, as i typed this, may be Region 2 and unplayable when i get home. Shit.
The Beatles Story cost more to get into than i’d like to admit, but it was a good time. Among the many installations depicting places relevant to Beatles history and specific moments in their timeline are a number of fascinating artifacts. As you might expect, there are musical instruments previously owned by the band, including George Harrison’s first guitar (which he apparently owned for four years before selling to another local kid – i’m suspicious of how they may have verified its authenticity) and most of the instruments used by John Lennon’s previous band, whose name escapes me at this particular moment. They were a skiffle band – a genre which was short-lived, but highly influential on the Beatles, and which George Harrison felt he never stopped playing. From the descriptions of skiffle and the samples we heard in the museum, skiffle seems to be the folk version of punk rock – in the 50s. I’m interested in hearing more of it.
I could probably go on and on about The Beatles Story and talk about all the fascinating things we saw there – like a copy of The White Album pressed on blue vinyl – but that is not what this journal is for. We were fortunately allowed to take pictures and video through the whole museum, except for the Elvis part, which i’m still getting to.
When we’d entered the museum, the cashier had given us a small pamphlet including a map. It showed two locations for The Beatles Story, the one we were at (and the only one on the city map), and a second several blocks away. We walked along the waterfront to get there, which was a path paved in rough cobblestones. It was hard on Amanda’s feet, wearing her toe shoes that are basically foot gloves, but i was having a hard time on it even in my regular shoes.
Along this path we saw three giant sculptures – superlambananas. They are literally statues of lambs crossed with bananas, like if you took a lamb and replaced its back end with a giant banana. I’ve got nothing. At no point in our stay in Liverpool did we see anything to indicate what a lambanana was or what it represented. The only plaque we saw near them said Please Do Not Sit On The Superlambananas. They are scattered about the city in the same way that Madison has our cow statues, and painted accordingly. Which is to say, each is a work of art representing something not necessarily associated with a cow/lamb/banana. The first of these three on the waterfront had portraits of bands on it (curiously, not The Beatles). Another had a frog on its face. Amanda informed me that she had seen a superlambanana near the airport when we first came in. She had tried to get me to shoot some video of it, but by the time i turned around, the bus had passed it. My only previous lambanana sighting was some miniature ones that the Cavern Club was selling, but this would not be our last.
The second location consisted of a larger gift shop than the first, a 4D theater showing a 12 minute film only loosely related to The Beatles, and an entire exhibit on the relationship between Elvis and The Beatles, which included video clips narrated by Pete Best, because what the hell else is Pete Best doing with his life the last 40 years.
I was a little upset when i first saw that this location contained the Elvis exhibit and 4D theater and that’s it, because when we first went in to the museum, we had opted to pay the lower admission price, which did not include those things. I said to Amanda, “Did he send us all the way the hell over here for these things, when he KNEW we didn’t pay for them?” She encouraged me to pull out the receipt and take a look, and i remembered then that what the kid at the desk had charged me had actually been a few pounds less than the listed price, which at the time i’d accepted without saying a word. So when i looked at the receipt, i was greeted with the words ULTIMATE PACKAGE – STUDENT.
So whoever you were, kid at the register, thanks for your generosity! Extra stuff for less money, because we’re clearly students. Made my day. So we got to see several guitars previously owned by Elvis, two of his sequined jumpsuits from the 70s, a whole collection of acetate vinyl which was given to Elvis by the studios he recorded at to proof the products before they were mass produced, and a bunch of other cool stuff.
The 4D movie was largely ridiculous, a narrative of a kid trying to get across town to perform with a band in 10 minutes. He is hit by a bus, which is operated by a crazy person whose eyes roll around randomly, and taken underwater and into a psychedelic world of this is what LSD looks like. So i suppose it was actually pretty Beatlesque. As it was a “4D movie,” we got shot in the face with water, jerked around in our seats, hit with some pretty strong strawberry scent, and flooded with bubbles.
From there, we decided it was time to head back to the Lime Street Station and catch our train to London. Even though the walk back to the station would not have been bad, we were universally of the opinion that FUCK WALKING. We’d been walking literally all day with our heavy backpacks on and going all the way back to the station on foot was as unappealing a prospect as getting dragged there behind a car. We asked someone at the museum if they knew what the best bus to take back would be, but he didn’t know, and directed us to the nearest bus stop where he assured us there would be several that would do it.
There was a driver just coming back to his parked bus when we arrived, and several buses waiting behind him, so i inquired as to which would get us back to the station. He suggested one of the others, then decided that we would actually be better off going with him. I mentioned our bus passes, but he said, “Bah, just get on.” So there we have it, the one time we actually took a bus in Liverpool after picking up our passes, and we didn’t even need them.
We arrived back at the station with plenty of time before our train actually left, and in fact a little before it even boarded. We grabbed some lunch at a fancy croissant place where Amanda chastised me for filming our food because no one would be interested in seeing what we were eating, and i thought to say, “Tell that to all the hipsters on Instagram,” but then realized that i’d be defeating myself, so i shut the camera off.
Boarding our 15:48 train at 15:30 seemed like a really good idea. I mean, of course, right?
Shortly before we were scheduled to leave, there came an announcement that the train was to be delayed for some sort of problem with the tracks just outside of the station, and they didn’t know how long it would take to repair.
A bit after that came the announcement that they were still working on it, and that it affected platforms 7, 8, and 9. We were at platform 7. More information to follow.
Eventually they canceled our train altogether and merged us with the identical route scheduled for 16:48. We were in no actual hurry, though it sucks to lose some London time in exchange for just sitting on a train doing nothing for an hour.
Well, the 16:48 got canceled also. There was an announcement that a train a couple platforms down would be leaving very soon and would get us near our destination, with only a transfer in Manchester. Our train, which was already bearing passengers intended for two separate runs, cleared out in a hurry as people scrambled over to the other platform. We were a bit slow in getting our things together, and a girl who had been sitting just a couple seats away from us came back aboard as we were about to debark, telling us that the other train was absolutely packed, there were people standing in the aisles and everything. We didn’t relish the idea of standing all the way to London, or even Manchester, so we decided to stay put. Amanda was getting increasingly agitated with the situation, and eventually i caved to her demands that i go talk to someone and find out what was going on. I was assured that the train we were already on would absolutely, definitely, for sure leave at 17:48.
Shockingly, it actually did. And so, fully two hours behind schedule, we are on the (rail)road to London. I’m not sure where we are as i type this, but it’s somewhere between Sheffield and London, and i am 100% certain that, in the middle of the countryside, sitting in the back yard (“garden” as they call it here) of some farmhouse, i saw a full size replica of a Stargate.
-Edit, five minutes later: John Lennon’s skiffle band was called The Quarry Men, and when i wrote that we were just outside of Watford Junction.
The train ride was around two and a half hours, landing us in London just after 8pm. It took us some time at the Euston Train Station to figure out which tubes would get us to our hostel. In fact, we didn’t even know where the hostel was. I’d printed every single email and document i’d been sent about the trip before we left, but somehow the address to our awesomely-named accommodation, the Arsenal Tavern Backpackers Hostel, was not contained within their confirmation. Fortunately, Amanda was able to recall, after looking at a tube system map, that it was near the Arsenal Station.
Because of course.
Well, that was easy.
So now comes my first experience with the London Tubes, which is their subway system. They are awesome. I tell you what, if we had a tube system in Madison, i would never drive anywhere. Pay a fee to get into the system, then you can hop from train to train unimpeded until you get to your destination. They come through every couple of minutes and just cruise from station to station. It’s so efficient, it’s so easy, and you literally cross the city in minutes. It sure beats traffic.
Dropped our stuff off at the hostel, locked up our bags, and headed down to the actual Arsenal Tavern to get some food. Sadly, they had already stopped serving for the night, a surprise to us since we thought they were supposed to serve until 11, but oh well. The barkeep directed us to several fine restaurants within a block, but we walked past them all and none tickled our fancy.
After a few blocks, we ended up at a place whose name escapes me now that served burgers, pizza, falafel, and kebabs. I guess it was Greek. We each ordered a chicken kebab, and i guess i was expecting some chunks of meat on a stick, but this was not the case. What we got was a plate full of little pieces of chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, and red and white onions. Then they brought out a couple of pitas and some bowls of cucumber sauce and hot sauce. So, not really knowing what to do, we cut open the pitas and stuffed them full of the various items from our plates. It was delicious. Highly recommended! Perhaps we will try the same type of deal when we get to Greece to see how it compares. We also got an orange soda, again whose name escapes me (this never happened in New Zealand, every little detail on the various brands and local items we consumed was memorized instantly…i’m losing my attention to detail), and i thought it very similar to the Fanta that we had for breakfast: like carbonated orange juice.
Next we hopped on a tube and headed toward the center of the city, to see London at night. It was well past dark at this point.
London at night is breathtaking. We emerged from the Underground (another term for the Tubes) at Embankment, right beside the Thames, and within a minute of walking could see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. As we drew closer to them, the London Eye loomed its gigantic self into our vision, that horrible device that Amanda is going to force me into tomorrow. See, the London Eye is the world’s largest Ferris Wheel; i hate those things, hate them madly. Granted, this one was constructed by actual engineers rather than chigger-eaten carnies (no offense intended for any former or current carnies reading this; you know who you are, and i assume you’ve already heard my story about the chigger-eaten carny i ran into once), so maybe i won’t fall off and die.
We continued down the bank of the Thames until we came to an open building; we weren’t sure what it was from the outside, but it looked like some sort of shopping center and definitely had a McDonald’s just inside, which was good, because i was desperately thirsty. Unfortunately, upon entry we discovered the McDonald’s to be closed, so we proceeded through the only other available door and found ourselves in a sprawling, three-story-tall video arcade. I was shocked that such a thing could exist these days; the only operable arcade of any kind i’ve seen in the last five or so years never had more than a handful of people in it and finally closed down just last year. The three levels extended underground rather than up, and on the final level down we found a full bar and a bowling alley. The middle level also had slot machines. But for the most part, all video games. We found a Pepsi machine, got what we came for, explored the rest, and then continued on our way. I’m kind of kicking myself now for not shooting any video in the place, it would have been cool to show my friends. Well, we’re in London for two more days, maybe we’ll go back.
Not far past that, we crossed over the Thames so we were now right next to Parliament and Big Ben. Beyond that, we walked around Westminster Abbey, all lit up and just gorgeous to look at. These are all places we intend to visit during the day, but seeing them at night is really something else.
After that, we found ourselves in Saint James. I was looking for the Infirmary, so i could sing some blues, but didn’t see it. It’s got to be there, though, right?
From Saint James we took the tubes back to Arsenal and the hostel, and that brings us up to now. Amanda’s asleep, i’m down in the common room finishing up this entry and posting stuff on the internet while i watch some rubbish on the TV. I’m not sure what this is, but they can say the f-word and show boobs on TV here, so there’s that.
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